Concepts of Home
Jennifer Bennett
Issue date: 11/30/05 Section: features
- Page 1 of 1
Versus Magazine Online [Image Edition]
"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in...isn't really your home anymore. All of a sudden, even though you have some place where you put your shit...that idea of home is gone. You'll see one day when you move out. Just sorta happens one day, and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know? You won't ever have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself."
-Garden State
Everyone's been there. You're at home over break - sitting in the bed you've slept in your entire life -- and yet all you really want is to be back at school. To be back in your dorm room; your cramped, messy, pseudo-house, your sanctuary, your haven, your… home. But that's the catch isn't it? What is home when you're in college?
Is home where you grew up, with your family and your pet dog, Ralph? Or is it at Vanderbilt, with your friends, your possessions, and your life as you live it now? College is a time of transition, not only in the educational arena, but also in every other facet of your life, including that now elusive concept of home. Life becomes fragmented as you head off to college. You have your high school friends there, your college friends here; you have your classes, and weekend parties here, and your local mall, and favorite restaurant there. Here, there, here, there…all of a sudden with this overabundance of "homes" you are in fact homeless.
And in this moment, a million questions arise: Will I always feel an intense longing for somewhere else? Will I constantly feel like I'm away at summer camp? Are the next four years of my life to be characterized by boxes, and perpetual shuffling of my life from one side of the United States to the next? When does this stop? How long do I have to live somewhere to call it home? And honestly, as I juggle my homes, and non-homes I have absolutely no answer to these questions. I just hope that at sometime and point in the future these questions will cease to exist, or matter.
So as I commit to live this suitcase lifestyle for the next four years I'm starting to see home now isn't necessarily a physical place but more of an idea, a situation. Home can be anything. Its so much more than a place you stay in the summer time, my home is at my desk at school - Its in my garage working on my car - Its lunch with my grandma - or dinner with my best friend - It can be movie night in the TV lounge - or digging for pop tarts in the pantry of my kitchen. Each of these little things embodies my concepts of "home". I don't need a physical place for now. I can be happy being homeless.
And while yes I still refer to the house I grow up in as home when I'm with my parents. And yes, I refer to McGill as going home when I'm with my friends elsewhere on campus. I'm happy with this duality of homes. Home doesn't have to be restricted to one place, or area, or city. Home is where I am happiest.
"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in...isn't really your home anymore. All of a sudden, even though you have some place where you put your shit...that idea of home is gone. You'll see one day when you move out. Just sorta happens one day, and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know? You won't ever have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself."
-Garden State
Everyone's been there. You're at home over break - sitting in the bed you've slept in your entire life -- and yet all you really want is to be back at school. To be back in your dorm room; your cramped, messy, pseudo-house, your sanctuary, your haven, your… home. But that's the catch isn't it? What is home when you're in college?
Is home where you grew up, with your family and your pet dog, Ralph? Or is it at Vanderbilt, with your friends, your possessions, and your life as you live it now? College is a time of transition, not only in the educational arena, but also in every other facet of your life, including that now elusive concept of home. Life becomes fragmented as you head off to college. You have your high school friends there, your college friends here; you have your classes, and weekend parties here, and your local mall, and favorite restaurant there. Here, there, here, there…all of a sudden with this overabundance of "homes" you are in fact homeless.
And in this moment, a million questions arise: Will I always feel an intense longing for somewhere else? Will I constantly feel like I'm away at summer camp? Are the next four years of my life to be characterized by boxes, and perpetual shuffling of my life from one side of the United States to the next? When does this stop? How long do I have to live somewhere to call it home? And honestly, as I juggle my homes, and non-homes I have absolutely no answer to these questions. I just hope that at sometime and point in the future these questions will cease to exist, or matter.
So as I commit to live this suitcase lifestyle for the next four years I'm starting to see home now isn't necessarily a physical place but more of an idea, a situation. Home can be anything. Its so much more than a place you stay in the summer time, my home is at my desk at school - Its in my garage working on my car - Its lunch with my grandma - or dinner with my best friend - It can be movie night in the TV lounge - or digging for pop tarts in the pantry of my kitchen. Each of these little things embodies my concepts of "home". I don't need a physical place for now. I can be happy being homeless.
And while yes I still refer to the house I grow up in as home when I'm with my parents. And yes, I refer to McGill as going home when I'm with my friends elsewhere on campus. I'm happy with this duality of homes. Home doesn't have to be restricted to one place, or area, or city. Home is where I am happiest.